HP Mini 311

[pigsty]

I joined this site back in 2011, made only 1 post in reply to a question. Now I have a question, I'm hoping to contact anyone who can provide me with some specific advice about how to improve an HP Mini 311. Anyone want to answer a few questions to help out an old guy?

Thanks in advance, I'm hoping poofyhairguy and some other forum members will see this and reply. I can't send any PMs to other members because I haven't posted 25 times (yet).

Thanks again, to one and all

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wasn't the HP Mini 311, one of those original Atom Netbooks, that shipped with like 1GB RAM, and WinXP Starter? Or am I thinking of something else?

Either way, throw Puppy Linux on that sucker, or recycle it. XP is dead, and 1GB of RAM isn't enough to run any modern Linux distro either, except for the few distros designed specifically for older / slower / less RAM PCs.

Or maybe try CloudReady on an 8GB USB stick? It's a Linux distro, centered around Chromium. (Much like ChromeOS. It's free for individuals.) I don't know how well Chromium will deal with only 1GB of RAM though. I'm not a Chrome user, but many people seem to comment that it uses up a lot of RAM.

Edit: I see, this Netbook had an NV ION chipset, and sported a 1366x768 display, much like my AMD APU-powered Acer Aspire One 722 Netbook, that also had a 1366x768.

I would try upgrading the RAM, or investigate that, at least. SOME Netbooks could unofficially use 2GB of RAM, in hardware, even though XP starter wouldn't use it. If yours can, then do it, and then throw some Linux on there, or CloudReady, as I said. (Which is in fact itself a specialized Linux distro.)

If nothing else, if it will take 2GB of RAM, then consider Win7 32-bit on there. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, and would probably run well, assuming that you can still get drivers for the NV ION and the included wifi NIC.

 

[JWade]

make sure its got 2gb ram, install a cheap ssd into it, about all you can do. it'll take win7, probably came with win7 starter.

 

[pigsty]

Thanks for the input; it is appreciated. The 311 has 3 GB of RAM and Win7, though I will hose that and install Mint Rafaela 17.2 XFCE, my favorite distro these days. I'm an old dog and don't do Chrome or Windows; I prefer Seamonkey and if need be, Firefox. I really appreciate that you plugged Puppy, I have an older Puppy distro on a 128 MB USB 2.0 flash drive, which seems to amaze a lot of people. It is the first USB 2.0 flash drive I ever bought, and even though I have more than 30 USB flash drives (with assorted Linux distros installed), including a 128 GB Patriot drive, I still use the 128 MB drive just for the joy of using something "obsolete" to test systems with.

Thanks again for the advice; I don't want to live in a world without Linux, and if I never had to fix a Windows system again, I'd think I died and went to Fenway Park.

 

[pigsty]

make sure its got 2gb ram, install a cheap ssd into it, about all you can do. it'll take win7, probably came with win7 starter.

Actually, the original 311's shipped with XP Home, the more recent versions shipped with Win7 Home Premium, Win7 Starter was installed on the HP Mini's that didn't include the ION-LE video chip. This one shipped with Win7 Home Premium, a good OS, but I prefer Linux and will install it as soon as I finish updating the BIOS to the latest version.

Thanks for taking time to reply, I appreciate your input.